Drosophila Melanogaster
by Momosportif
Summary: From the POV of Johnny Gill, a tribute fic to Suman Dark. Set several years after Suman's death. No pairing... hope that's understood... Characters are Hoshino's, please read and enjoy! Thank you!


Drosophila Melanogaster

I love my job, I really do. I love discovery and research and I don't mind detail or repetition or drudgery. I really don't. But I can't smile about the facts and the things they take from the world because truth's steep tax is innocence, wonder, hope, and possibility. So in science all you can truly have is theoretical, controlled possibility at best. And that is usually enough for hope. But it isn't, it really isn't, enough for the kind of hope that keeps your head from aching or the world from splitting or your heart from drowning.

_I didn't know what to say. All of our conversations stopped midway as Reever stepped back from the big main office doors and swallowed as he announced, _

_"Miss Dark…" to the room. She was beautiful and tiny, shorter than me even, like a porcelain doll. And her tiny mouth had been painted in a turned down stroke of rose with glassy blue eyes shinier than they should have been. But no one saw her when they looked at her, they saw a black and white circular photograph in an empty pocket watch holder in the mutated hand of a smiling man so often severe. And then everyone saw things they didn't want to see from a holographic blue playback we'd seen on the desk she was approaching._

_ Komui let us know, it was bad, he took his glasses off and swept his hair back, he never took his glasses off unless it was bad. He was standing slowly as if he could wait forever to straighten his knees and face the creature already staring up to see him, he could wait forever to make himself available to the girl who'd placed one traveling boot in the office and kept his gaze on hers from that point on. Someone choked and dropped their clipboard, backing into the lab where the crying was muffled. No one looked. Reever glared across the room at Komui fully standing and the girl just a foot from the desk before dropping his head. _

Everyone, even if they're not in the field, knows the biological proof with Drosophila melanogaster. Spontaneous generation is impossible. The alchemists of the Middle Ages saw Drosophila appear on raw meat left out too long and thought that it must've come from the meat itself. Of course eventually they realized a living thing had to come from another living thing, but not everyone accepted it at once. Such a tiny creature created controversy in the scientific community for more years than it, its first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth following generations lived. Incredible. Of course, all that time, no one really cared about Drosophila, they cared about what the spoiled raw meat was doing.

_I was the only one close enough to hear the whole conversation. And the only one who'd watch the whole thing but that was just because I couldn't stop staring at something that had grown so carefully about to shatter. She'd been bedridden all his life but now she was in front of Komui's desk._

"_I came…" I watched the question finish between the glassy blue eyes and the wide dark ones. Komui stared with that look of pain from all the times he thought no one was watching and he'd lost that last bit of his immense store of composure. That look we all wish we'd never seen, with his mouth slightly open from a need to breathe and his eyes stretched wide and empty from a need to see but every muscle under his skin taut and shaking because he'd rather not watch, rather not respire if it meant he had to watch._

"_He-Miss, I-" Komui set his glasses down and side stepped his desk in one movement, in one movement taking her in his arms and hiding both of their faces. I was the only one who saw his long fingers slide against her scalp beneath gold hair he maybe wished was dark and slim arms tighten around lace covered shoulders he maybe wished were shrouded in a black uniform he was more familiar with and her poised back slowly curve and finally quake because Komui couldn't answer her. He didn't mean to die. She was so young, he must have been dead for half a decade at least, so many died at that time, too many. _

_Healthy people died._

Sometimes I've thought of Drosophila when the incinerator runs and I've been disappointed that the raw meat couldn't have given more than a debate. Because then we could bring back life with innocence, wonder, hope, and possibility and I think, I really think, that that would be beautiful. But I know, science shows us, that that would be supernatural and against the natural order of life because I know more than I think that we live and die in a cycle that's important because time wears things down. The meat spoils. Drosophila comes and lays its eggs. It dies and the eggs hatch. And they're so strong because the meat's right there, right there to eat. It wouldn't be beautiful, but I think it would be nice. It could keep your head un-ailing, the world as one, and your heart afloat. But it's a possibility and one with too many variables attached. So it can't be nice, but it can be beautiful, even if it's just raw meat and fruit flies.

_They took her all around, because she'd come so far, they showed her all the interesting places in the Order. She held on tight to Komui's arm because she couldn't fly quite yet but she smiled and laughed because you can only cry so much. And Komui smiled and laughed because he missed the ones who could fly quite well but he never let it show. She couldn't stay the night because she'd promised a boy that she wouldn't put herself in any danger unless he was close enough to help, so I saw her before she left, in the recreation room._

"_Oh," tiny hands released their hold on Komui's sleeve as she moved across to a table. "Does someone play?" she held aloft a little black horse. Everyone in the room turned their heads to me, her after everyone who knew._

"_Johnny… plays… he…" Komui's raised arm, gesturing towards me, went limp._

"_Could I have a game?" I didn't know what to say, I couldn't have if I wanted to I'm sure. So someone pushed my back a bit and I just walked, sat, and played his game with his daughter from the momentum of that nudge. I was numb from the start until, "Checkmate," and the finish. She smiled with her teeth and said, "Hard game! I haven't had good competition for ages! None of the doctor's could keep up with me by the time I was twelve. Thanks for the good match!" I shook the porcelain doll hand she offered me and finally found a voice. _

"_Eight to thirty-eight."_

"_Pardon?"_

_And I smiled with my teeth and told her, "It's been seven to thirty-eight for too long." And even though she couldn't see my eyes we finished all the questions. So she knew and I knew then that it was okay that he was gone because something living must have come from something living. Living at one time, if not now, but still, living. __Drosophila__ taught me well, it really did._

_ I wrote a letter the day after. _

_"Dear Jaime,_

_I hope you made it back okay, for your sake and your gentleman friend's. I'm glad to have met the daughter of the great man who was so great a friend but couldn't be near you to show you how great a father he was as well. He's proud. All that was living still lives somewhere, you know? _

_Sincerely, _

_Johnny_

_P.S. And I'd love to play again, I really would._


End file.
